Inside of SotA Headquarters

After watching the last livestream and hearing one of them say:

"I need to look into spells being disrupted, because on my mage I don't think any of my spells are ever disrupted by a mob."

While I'm over here wondering how archers became Gods at spell disruption.

​

 

HAHAHAHA

When the devs say loot is what it is because if it was more it would affect the economy... all I hear is blah blah blah SUCK IT ADVENTURERS! I swear, when I hear the devs talk about loot and the economy and balance, I wonder if maybe they drink every day at work - the telethons and shots is just business as usual. lol

 

Save that they said in this week's Post Mortem that the mid-range loot sucks and they know it and will be addressing it.

 

I'll have so many jokes at the ready for when loot gets fixed.

 

Im fine with loot being one of the last things fixed honestly.

Rare low level stuff? to bad i farmed 500 of them already.
Artifacts? 1% drop ? its okay we got all of them documented in 6 hours. And prices dropped from 400k, to 30k in a matter of a week.

Game mechanics first. Balance first.
Then Quests + loot / Economy.

Why try to build around the current economy? They clearly never had any intention of mines being pure mineable like Searpents for example. Imagine how dif the economy is going to be if suddenly elyssium is adjusted and silver yield is cut 25-30%. Make all these unclones, and major adjustments FIRST, then worry about loot/economy.

Get all the mechanics working FIRST then worry about quests and questlines.


To the OP - Sometimes i swear they dont look at the things they *fix* for more then 10 sec. Or the people testing it are REALLY not paying attention.

I still refuse to let them off the hook for putting the game on sale, then doing a patch where players were de syncing, and arrows stopped working for almost 2 weeks. HOW does that get missed? and HOW does the patch not just get reversed to the old one!?
Its why i said they need to get RANDOM, never played SOTA before people to go through the Starting area, and take feedback RIGHT from them. Not put in a *new player experiance* then have some SOTA Vets skip through saying everything looks good!

 

unbiased testing would indeed help this game out a lot.

I do feel for them, they need to make a new player experience that makes sense, fix almost everything and keep us "vets" happy. But at the same time, I agree 100% with you. It often feels as if they make knee-jerk reactions to a change, don't test the change and move onto the next thing for a few months before coming back to see the outcome of said changes.

 

How hard will they need to nerf the whole System to stop powegrinding?
Its a lost battle of the dev's, they just ruin it for all the lazy casual players who feel no rewarding or imnersive gameplay.
They should go the other way and make progression play more worthless.

I dont want to buy an artifact, i want to fight a boss for it by myself and feel i've earned a reward.

The way they nerf the game around the powergamers seems wrong to me.

Nobody can limit them.
They could decrease skillrates by 10 or reduce ores in mines by 75% the Powergamer will beat the system by nature.

And thats no accusation, just analysis.

Let us all reach the endcontent and be competetive without to grind so much.
Yes the powergamers will get bored and maybe leave, but a lot of people who already leave maybe come back and many who are going to leave when they realized what it is about wont leave, but stay.

 

Except they are doing a full blown player run economy.
What this means is these *power gamers* and ill argue that you can play casuall and hit end game QUITE quickly. Will flood the market with any *rare * item.

Something that took you 6 months to do, doesnt mean it will take others.

So now you have a player economy getting easier and easier for active players to flood, and destroy the value of things. This leads to only end game gear in game, with almost no value. This destroys the value of gold, this destroys the value of COTOS, This destroys the value of anything and everyting people have bought from the add on store.

This also means that people that play more casually, can hit the endgame quicker.. and then leave?
Thats not how you market a good MMO.
If a new player can play 3 hours a day, and *finish* it and be on end game in a matter of a month? Thats what you will see.

Its not just power gamers that will leave, its people that play casually who are also hitting the end game as well. The idea they should build a game around people playing 30min - an hour at a time. 1-2 times a week?
No. Thats just a blatently bad idea.

 

That's not what i wanted to say.
But actually, with existing content it's not well balanced to progress.
Instead of making it so hard to progress they can limit what is doable to progress and to achieve.
There are games that give you a xp bonus for the first hour of login within 24hrs.
What about a debuff if people grind too much? -10% after 4hrs, -20% after 5, -30% after 6...
Just to limit these "unnormal" progression and dividing the players.
Same for dropping items and bosskills.
If there is a 1% Chance and you get one, why not reduce the Chance by 10% for the following 72hrs and every new drop? accumulating.
So you cannot farm bosses and artifacts and they stay special. Or make it less rewarding and interesting.
Actually they divide pro gamers from casual players so much, that "normal" players automatically feel behind and to have no Chance to catch up.
I for myself managed to be not influenced by that anymore, but i seperate myself from things and people to be happy with the game and to not compare anymore . For me it's fine, really, and it's not misery or envy. To compare and to want to be equal is human.
A games community should not be a meritocracy, where people with the most time and investment rule the Economy and the game.
Would be a further development if they can go beyond and dont reduce it to this.
People who do community Events and bring it to another level should be rewarded too and they also should have the possibility to compete and feel powerfull.
I dont want to sound as if i want to restrict people, but even if people find it relaxing to grind they shouldnt do it 10hrs a day everyday.
If they do it it's maybe better to reduce the reward slightly for every hour they do too much and "destroy" Economy or exclusivity of artifacts.

I dont want the game become easier to achieve something but to limit people doing it in the way some do it.

I cannot explain it well in english, i hope it isnt misunderstood, because it sounds restricting.
Yes it is restricting, but to save the exclusivity of content and to not to divide the small playerbase but find a compromise to have powergamers and casual players stick together and do not avoid each other, because they play on totally different levels.
The Elite can be stay the best but should have an interest to include the "weaker" players in one community and not to segregate themself and sure produce misery and envy for some gamers.
The topic of feeling behind, cannot catchup are allways a topic here. Abusing gamemechanics and such.
Some are ignorant and just say dont be envy. But that's to simple and shortsighted imho.
Bring people together and dont divide them.
It's a game, a community game with a small playerbase. And i doubt we ever will see 1000 players online at the same time.
So we maybe should find ways to support casuals to be able to feel as a part of the whole community and avoid elitist minorities.